Yesterday word leaked out that Glenn Greenwald would be leaving the Guardian to help create some new thing backed by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. I just got off the phone with Omidyar. So I can report more details about what the new thing is and how it came to be.
"What those involved in it fail to acknowledge is their own investment in a permanent and unyielding image of political symmetry. But I think the high point has passed for this kind of reporting."
That's what the surveillance state is trying to do. It has the means, the will and the latitude to go after journalism the way it went after terrorism. Only a more activist press, working together, stands a chance of resisting this.
PRESSTHINK is a project of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. It is written and edited by professor Jay Rosen, who has taught at NYU since 1986. The blog is about the fate of the press in a digital era and the challenges involved in rethinking what journalism is today. It presents essays, press criticism, interviews and speeches. PressThink does not accept advertising.